[OSM-legal-talk] Fwd: Re: [OSM-talk] OSM layer into Adobe Illustrator?

[Nick Black]

On 2/27/07, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> > The problem is _creating_ and maintaining that data when a large number of
> > people with diverse interests need to cooperate to make it happen.  The
> > default is for such people not to trust each other with unrestricted access
> > to their own valuable data, which is where copyleft licenses come in, by
> > providing a set of "share alike" rules which means that nobody who
> > contributes data can fail to get the full benefit from it.
>
> But that is exactly what I fear: I contribute now, and a later, more
> commercially-minded instance of myself might fail to get the full
> benefit from it.
>
> It's all nice happy-family talk of freedom, but woe to those who one day
> might cross the line that divides those spending money on a hobby from
> those trying to make money by forming a commercial enterprise.
>
> I know, we don't explicitly forbid commercial use - but if the "SA"
> aspect is interpreted as "anything you build on top of OSM data has to
> be made available to your competitors without the chance of recapturing
> some of the funds invested", then we actively undermine possible
> commercial use.

No way.  This is one area where there are surely direct comprisons to
the GPL.  How many companies make a load of money from improving and
resselling GPLd software, whilst still contribnuting back to the
community that created it?  There's case proof that commerical
organisations are interested in OSM  - Multimap, Nestoria, Cadcorp -
all see value within the current license structure.  They dont want to
*own* the data, because they benifit from the effect that OSM has/will
have on the wider geodata market, as well as getting their hands on
the data right now.

>
> Bye
> Frederik
>
> --
> Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00.09' E008°23.33'
>
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-- 
Nick Black
--------------------------------
http://www.blacksworld.net